Japan Day Twelve : Hakuba 1st day on the slopes....

We got down to the restaurant at 8am for our included breakfast. It's the only place on the holiday where we've got the breakfast, and it's awesome. We would have never been up in time for the breakfasts as other places, so it would have been a waste of money, but being as we're planning on being out on the slopes by 9am, a decent feed is important.

Woo and I got to the ski school where we were informed that they dont do English beginner lessons from that location. We had to catch another bus to the other side of the mountain. Being as Woo and I had both done a day snowboarding at Mt Buller about 2 years ago, we decided to have a crack at it on one beginner slope before we schlepped ourselves all over the mountain for a lesson.

We went up, and as expected, we both stacked it coming off the lift. I managed to remember what to do from last time fairly quickly, and was soon leafing down the run. Woo however had started back at square one, not entirely surprising, as it was ages ago we went to Buller, and he's never skated. So he picked up his bat an ball and went home (by that I mean he picked up his board, walked the rest of the way down the run, and went to find the bus to take him to his lesson).

I stayed on the slopes, and within a few runs was already better than I was at the end of the last time I was at the snow. I had the whole leafing thing pretty sorted, and now felt I could get down the run without falling easily, hence I started trying to turn on my toes. When you leaf, you stay looking down the hill the whole time, turning on your toes requires you to have your back facing down the hill. Bit more scary, and I'm shit at it, but you have to be able to turn on either side of your body to look like a proper snowboarder.

I was really enjoying this alone time out in the beautiful snow with my iPod playing my favourite tracks. Although it did irritate me that every time I stacked (which was reasonably often) at least one of my ear pods would fall out. Then I couldn't put it back in til I got back down the bottom, as it required taking my glove off. I soon worked that I would get the most out of my day if I dealt with that sort of shit (and cleaning goggles etc) while I was sitting around on the chair lift.

After a few hours of this, I went back to the original run, as I was going to take a different lift and go try out another run. There I found Woo and one of the girls from last night, Kelli. Woo had gotten to the other place 15min late for a lesson, but he had found wrist guards, so he was feeling a little better. He still had no confidence, and Kelli was probably a little better than me, so we all went out together. Woo showed steady signs of improvement throughout the day, but his posture was very stiff, which puts a lot of strain on your muscles. I was still doing mega stacks trying to toe turn. While snowboarding, the worst thing you can do is catch your front edge in the snow. It stops your board dead, yet your body keeps going forward, sending you flying through the air, most likely faceplanting the snow. It is affectionately known as a "Superman". I did this a few times, it's not the most fun. If you catch you front edge while turning on your toes, hence your back is facing down the hill, you perform what is known as a "backwards Superman". I did the hugest backwards superman this afternoon. I must have flown about eight metres before landing on my back and sliding for another twenty.

By the end of the day however, Woo could get down a run without stacking it, and I had my toe turns mostly sorted. A very successful day all in all.

We got back to the hotel and had a few drinks. Jeremy was serving at the bar, and he is awesome. If you ask for a bourbon and coke, he keeps pouring the bourbon til you tell him to stop, hence me and Woo got fairly toasted off three drinks. We met up with the crew from last night. They were going out o dinner and it was Kelli and Dawesy's last night there. We went to a little restaurant down the hill that brings you out all the raw stuff and you cook it yourself in a hotplate at your table. It was delicious, but i did smell a lot like barbeque. Tonight was also the first night that Pandahat made an appearance. Sara gave me a warm hat that looks like a panda head to wear while at the snow, and I wore it out with the crew, which they found very amusing.

After a nice meal, a few of the boys ran over the road to grab some beers, but they came back with about three shopping bags full of beer. By the time we got back to the hotel it had been snowing for hours and everything was covered. We stayed up drinking in the common room til about 11pm, once venturing outside for a drunken snowball fight (which was fucken awesome fun) before going back to our room to continue drinking with a couple of the folks. not entirely such a good idea, as it meant I had nowhere to go when I wanted to go to sleep, but it was a really good night with a completely new and random bunch of people, so the fact that I didn't get to sleep til 2am didn't bother me so much.

And it was gonna snow all night and I was really looking forward to tomorrow!